King Cake with Pecan Praline Cream Cheese Filling

This King Cake has a pecan praline and cream cheese filling and is topped off with praline frosting! The brioche dough is light, buttery and incredibly moist. With a 100% whole grain option.

Did you know that King Cake isn’t just a Louisiana / Mardi Gras thing? They have King Cakes in France, Spain, Portugal, Latin American countries and some other places. But they don’t look like the Louisiana-style King Cakes we know covered in powdered sugar glaze and green, gold and purple sugar (you can see some pictures of international King Cakes at the bottom of this page if you’re interested!).

I’m wondering how many angry comments I’ll get on this post for not using the traditional powdered sugar glaze and colored sugar. ;) I was going to go with that but I was feeling too lazy to dye my sugar plus I’m not really into using food coloring and adding pure sugar on top of almost more pure sugar to my goodies.

So I used the same praline frosting that I used on my apple bundt cake. It was perfect! And so much more delicious than the traditional glaze.

This is definitely the fussiest recipe I’ve ever posted but it’s so worth it. First you make brioche dough and chill it overnight. If you want to skip that step, I have no idea how it’d work as I haven’t tried it. I’m thinking the overnight rest has something to do with flavors melding but I could be wrong. Then you have to make praline pecan filling and cream cheese filling and praline frosting. It’s better than any bakery King Cake I’ve had – so much more flavorful, buttery and rich!

I’ve made this cake so many times and I always make a mess out of it. The part where you take the two rolled up ends of dough and connect them to form a circle? I can never do that. I keep messing with it and then filling comes oozing out and it never looks good. But it always turns out okay because you’re going to cover it up with frosting, anyway! Plus it’s so delicious that I swear, nobody will care at all about how it looks.

I waited too long to frost my King Cake and the frosting had hardened a little too much and you can see the frumpy result in that second picture. I contemplated not posting this King Cake recipe for about two seconds due to its appearance and then realized how insane that’d be.

The praline filling yields quite a bit. When I had only put on half the filling, I already thought it was too much and that I should stop. I also had no idea how I would be able roll to up the dough! But it worked. Don’t skimp on the filling because it’s really not all that much.

And who loves my Mardi Gras decorations?! I totally forgot to bring some back from New Orleans and so for these pictures, I turned to using a chip bag and upside down green and purple cupcake liners.

For the frosting:

For decoration:

1 plastic baby trinket

about 1/2-3/4 cup toasted chopped pecans

Directions

For the dough:

Dissolve yeast with the water in the bowl of a stand mixer which has been fitted with the dough hook. Let stand 10 minutes until frothy. Meanwhile, dissolve the salt, sugar, milk and orange zest in a small bowl and add to the yeast mixture after the 10 minute waiting period.

With the mixer on low, add the 2 eggs, cinnamon, and then gradually add the flour. You may not need the full 2 cups – the dough should be a little tacky but not sticky (it shouldn't stick to your hand when you touch it). Knead on low speed for 10 minutes, or until a smooth elastic dough is formed. It may be that you need to add a little more flour. While still on low, add the butter until incorporated, a little at a time.

Put the dough into an oiled bowl, cover loosely with plastic wrap and let it rise for 1 hour in a warm spot. Once the dough has doubled in bulk, punch it down, cover and place in the refrigerator overnight.

The next morning, prepare the fillings. For the praline filling, stir the butter, egg yolks, sugar and salt together in a medium saucepan over medium heat. While stirring constantly, bring to a boil. Continue stirring for another 3-5 minutes or until it's thickened and pulls away from the side of the pan. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the maple extract and chopped nuts. Let cool about 20 minutes and then place in the refrigerator for about an hour.

For the cream cheese filling, beat the cream cheese and sugar at medium speed until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla and salt and beat until combined. Place in the refrigerator until ready to use.

After the praline filling has chilled, take out the dough of the refrigerator and flour a clean surface. I like to use a large sheet of parchment paper so that I don't have to worry about transferring the rolled up dough. Roll the dough out to a 8"x18" rectangle. Make sure to flour your parchment paper very well so that the dough doesn’t stick. It warms up pretty quickly and it will stick if you don’t flour the paper enough.

Dollop spoonfuls of the cream cheese filling in the middle of the rectangle along the whole length, leaving about 1 1/2 inch on each side. Spoon the pecan filling over the cream cheese filling.

Fold the dough over the filling lengthwise and pinch the two sides together. Transfer the roll to a parchment lined baking sheet. If you rolled out your dough on a piece of parchment paper, just continue to the next step.

Flip the dough over so that the seam is on the bottom. Turn the roll into an oval, and put one end into the other end to hide the seam. Seal the circle by pinching the dough together. Loosely cover (I spray plastic wrap with PAM so that it doesn’t stick) and let rise until doubled in bulk, which could take anywhere from 45 – 60 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat your oven to 350ºF (177ºC). After the dough has doubled in bulk, brush all over with egg wash, and then bake for 20 – 30 minutes until golden brown.

When the cake has cooled, prepare the frosting. In a small saucepan over medium heat, mix together the coconut sugar, butter, milk and salt. Whisking continuously, bring to a boil and continue boiling, while whisking continuously, for 1 minute. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the vanilla. Gradually whisk in the powdered sugar and mix until totally smooth. Stir occasionally for about 3 minutes or until the frosting has slightly thickened. Immediately pour over the cooled King cake. If you wait until the frosting is too cool, it'll make glazing the cake more difficult (which you can see in my pictures). If it's thickened too much, place back on the heat for a few moments until it's more liquid. Immediately sprinkle the chopped pecans over the top.

Hide the baby somewhere in the cake and serve! Keeps well at room temperature for 1 day or refrigerated for up to 5 days. Reheats well in the microwave at half-power.

A Gluten-free version up next? Maybe using Americas Test Kitchen flour recipe? I’ve had tremendous success with their gluten-free recipes. You never fail to produce a successful GF recipe, so how about King Cake. Btw, my last name is King. Seems fitting :-)

How I wish I could help you with your request! There are so many ingredients in this recipe that I can’t eat anymore (I can only have 4 of the listed ingredients) that it wouldn’t be possible for me. :( It’s really sad because I LOVE this recipe. I’d suggest experimenting with the mix you like (if it’s a 1-to-1 mix) and seeing how it comes out. I’ve never used that mix and don’t have access to it where I love so I honestly have no idea if it’d work. Sorry I can’t be more helpful!

I live in Alaska, and they have no idea what a King cake is, so I made a normal one with cream cheese and cinnamon cake. I have seen bakers who change the color for Easter, Christmas, Thanksgiving and other holidays. Now, I need to try this one. It looks and sounds wonderful.

I’ve always wanted to make a from-scratch king cake, and made one last night for my family. It was a raging success! My 7yo and I heated some up for breakfast, and are enjoying it now. I love to bake, and this was super fun to make. :)

I’m so very happy to hear that it was a success! And I love that you thought it was a fun process. It was kind of frustrating for me. ;) And oh my goodness. Isn’t reheated king cake the BEST breakfast ever?! Such fond memories for me. :) Thanks for your comment!

I made this cake last year for Epiphany, Erin, and that praline cream cheese filling absolutely blew our minds! I didn’t plan ahead well enough so we had to have it the day after (with all the rising/resting needed) but I won’t make that mistake again. I’ll start a day ahead of time and our Epiphany & Mardi Gras celebrations will never be without this centerpiece. Thanks so much for sharing the recipe – it is nothing short of divine!

This is the first feedback I’ve gotten for this recipe so I was super excited to read your comment! I’m so very happy that you enjoyed the cake. :) The filling is my favorite part, too! And I’m thrilled that you’re going to be making it every year. It’s a pain in the butt to make but totally doable once a year. ;) Thanks again for your nice comment!

I’m from the New Orleans area and I always see non-dyed king cakes, specifically praline (with a glaze like yours) and chocolate. A few places do king cakes for every holiday, and recently savory king cakes have become a thing (like crawfish filled..no icing lol).
The best really are homemade..which is how I got to your page.. my family has been requesting praline filled :)

That’s good to know! We don’t have much selection in Texas. And with chocolate?! Yum! I hope to try that one day. I think I’ll pass on the crawfish filled cakes, though. ;) I hope you’ll enjoy the cake if you give it a try! It’s one of my very favorite treats. If only it were quicker to make! I’d love to hear how it comes out if you try it. :)

Hi, Jenny, hope you are doing good. I was reading this recipe for the king cake …I want to save it to make later….but can’t find any method for saving it in the recipe part….do you know if there is any way that I could save without having to write it ?…thank you so much in advance!

Hi Janice! Do you see in the recipe card (under the title) where there’s a square picture of the cake with 5 pink hearts above it? Under the picture is a gray button that says, “PRINT.” Click on that and then you can print the recipe or just save it. Or you could copy and paste the recipe and put it into a word document and save it that way. I hope that helps!

I think your version of king cake looks WAY better than the normal king cake. I know this is going to sound dumb but the traditional version is just too colorful – it sorta freaks me out…haha. This cake just make me want it for a midnight snack!

This is truly gorgeous, and I could eat a ton of this. I think it’s cool you made the year round version. Honestly I think it’s smarter to not colour it, that way the post is good year round. I mean if they do it where King Cake originates from then you should be able to as well. Plus so many folks are moving away from colourings so this is a good thing.

I love King Cakes! I think a praline cream cheese filling idea and that luscious frosting is a fun version (how could anyone be mad!?!). Just how to get a piece to enjoy this morning with my cappuccino? :)